Samuel Smith

THIS PICTURE WAS SHOWN AS SAM SMITH BUT I AM NOT ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN THAT THIS IS JAMES FRANKLIN SMITH'S FATHER. DOCUMENTED BY MARIE SIMPSON.

Samuel’s father, John Smith, died in 1861 and was buried in Pensacola, Florida.

Some time between 1861 and 1870, Samuel moved to Indianola, Texas with his brother, Thomas, and his mother, Susan.

July 1, 1870 - According to the 1870 US Census, Thomas was head of household and working as a carpenter in Indianola, Texas. Susan was “keeping house” and Samuel at age 18 was “at home”.

Samuel married Nancy Elizabeth Saxon in Fayette County, Texas in 1875. Given the fact that a major hurricane virtually wiped out Indianola in 1875, one begins to wonder if Samuel was still living in Indianola when the hurricane struck.

Interesting facts about Indianola, Texas: Indianola is a ghost town located on Matagorda Bay in Calhoun County, Texas, United States. The community, once the county seat of Calhoun County, is a part of the Victoria, Texas, Metropolitan Statistical Area. In 1875, the city had a population of 5,000, but on September 15 of that year, a powerful hurricane struck, killing between 150 and 300 and almost entirely destroying the town. Indianola was rebuilt, only to be wiped out on August 19, 1886, by another intense hurricane, which was followed by a fire. Indianola was designated a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1963, marker number 2642.[1]

From its founding in 1846, Indianola served as a major port, and before the 1875 storm was second only to Galveston as Texas's primary port.[11] The town incorporated in 1853. In 1856, the port received cargoes of camels, part of the US Army Camel Corps experiment to replace horses and mules as the primary pack animal in the southwestern parts of the country.

During the American Civil War, Indianola was twice occupied by Union troops, in October 1862 and November 1863. During the second occupation, part of a Union infantry regiment moving from Indianola to Matagorda Island drowned in Matagorda Bay.

In 1869, the world's first mechanically-refrigerated shipment of beef left Indianola for New Orleans.